Motivation and emotion/Tutorials/Psychological needs

Tutorial 04: Psychological needs
This is the fourth tutorial for the motivation and emotion unit of study.

This tutorial facilitates an interactive discussion about:

1. basic psychological needs
2. taxonomy of motivation (intrinsic-extrinsic motivation)

This is based on self-determination theory.

Brainstorm and discuss:

Discuss:

• Review topic development marks and feedback – follow-up and discuss if you don’t understand
• Align sub-title, focus questions, and headings
• Identify the best psychological science on the topic: Systematic reviews and/or meta-analysis
• Embed links to more information:
  • Other book chapters
  • Wikipedia articles
• Topic development - General feedback

We are now in the "messy middle" of the book chapter development:

• Motivational pattern (consistent with motivational science about the trajectory of motivation)
  • Strong at start (excitement, newness)
  • Strong at end (deadline pressure, completion goals)
  • Dips in middle (novelty fades, finish feels long, distractions increase)
• Strategies for the middle
  • Make small, regular edits → steady progress
  • Use scaffolding → build on topic development feedback and work towwards chapter guidelines
  • Seek clarification; follow up if unsure
• Key idea
  • Keep momentum alive in the “messy middle”—in this case, by doing small edits regularly to move from Topic Development → Book Chapter

• Tutorial 04 (2025)

• Instructor notes

Additional tutorial material

• Example of SDT: Child cleaning teeth
• Implicit motives
• Models which organise needs
• Self-determination theory

Lecture

• Extrinsic motivation and psychological needs

Tutorials

• Physiological needs (Previous tutorial)
• Functionalist theory and self-tracking (Next tutorial)

• Promoting motivation, health, and excellence (Ed Deci, 2012, TEDx, YouTube 14:05 mins)
• Self-determination theory (selfdeterminationtheory.org)